Psalm 51:10 - "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." Valentine’s week is a good time to talk about what love is and what it isn’t. We have in America, what I call a serious "anti-love epidemic." We’re sick for the lack of real love! VERY FEW PEOPLE IN OUR SOCIETY TODAY UNDERSTAND WHAT LOVE IS. We’re love-starved. We have fallen for the lie that sex is love. And it shows up in all the statistics:
THE FACTS ABOUT PREMARITAL SEX
· SEXUAL INITIATION. In the 1960’s, 25% of young men and 45% of young women were virgins at age 19; by the 1980s, fewer than 20% of males and females were.
· SEXUAL HISTORY. About 30% of Americans say they have had one or no sex partners since turning 18; 30% say two to four partners; 22% say five to 10 partners; 20% say 10 partners or more.
· COHABITATION. In the 1950s, roughly 9 in 10 young women got married without living with their partner, compared with 1 in 3 in the early 1990s. In fact, a 1997 U.S. News poll shows that a majority of respondents under the age of 45 think that adult premarital sex "generally benefits people."
· VIRGIN BRIDES. Percentage of white women married from 1960-65 who were virgins: 43; from 1980-85:14.
Source: Sex in America; The Social Organization of Sexuality; Journal of Marriage and the Family
Everyone wants and deserves to be loved. But my heart breaks for what I see. One-night stands, sex with your dating partner and living together with your lover have become the "norm." Hollywood has glorified premarital sex. In his book Prime Time, Robert Lichter, states that prime-time television now by implication endorses unmarried adults’ intentions to have sex in about 3 out of 4 cases and raises concerns only about 5% of the time. "Date rape" is a growing trend. Sexual abuse, often by family members, steals away the innocence of thousands of young people every year. In their search for love, many have turned to the gay/lesbian lifestyle.
To borrow lyrics from a corny old, country song, we’re
"Looking for love in all the wrong places…" We keep buying the counterfeit, pretending it’s real. We want 14 carat, but settle for "fool’s gold." We’re searching for diamonds, but end up with a handful of cubic zirconium. And the disappointment goes way beyond a feeling of being "ripped off." We have a generation of "walking wounded"; people with a hole in their soul. The pain of selling out only to receive a counterfeit love in return is devastating.
I’ve never seen so many people in need of true love. How can you find and protect pure love when you live in a very impure world?
I. PURE LOVE IS ABOUT COMMITMENT. "Love…always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres…always…" - I Cor. 13:7 Don’t even talk to me and tell me you love someone or that someone loves you if the level of commitment isn’t high. If there’s no commitment, there’s no love.
Illustr. - I recently bumped into a young lady I know who was sitting outside the mall. She’s a young, attractive single mom - she’s got a lot going for her. I’ve tried many times to encourage her. I’ve looked her in the eye and said, "You deserve the best." When I asked her where she was living I received a far too common answer, "I’m living with my boyfriend. He treats me good." I was bummed. When I came back out she was still sitting there and I walked over and said, "If he really wants to treat you good he’ll put a ring on your finger and walk you down the aisle."
She responded, "We’re not ready for that yet." (What she meant was, "We’re not ready for COMMITMENT.") I said, "Then you’re not ready to be living together." Because you see, there’s no commitment and when there’s no commitment you always have to wonder, "Do I have diamonds or is this the cheap imitation stuff?" You’re giving your body, the most private, intimate part of yourself, to someone who can walk away tomorrow with no strings attached.
Illustr. - Job Description for the Liberated Man/Woman, according to Melvin Hasman, author of Spiritual Life in the Good ’Ol USA
Here are the facts on Cohabitation or "Living together" with your "lover" outside marriage:
· FACT #1: MARRIED PEOPLE HAVE HEALTHIER UNIONS THAN COUPLES WHO LIVE TOGETHER. According to David Larson, M.D., of the National Institutes of HealthCare Research, "couples who live together before marriage have an increased tendency to divorce," paralleling the rise in the divorce rate over the last 20 years. A similar study conducted by Washington State University revealed the same thing. In fact, marriages preceded by cohabitation are 50-100% more likely to break up than those marriages not preceded by cohabitation. - (Axin/Thorton 1992, Demography, 29, p. 358.)
· FACT #2: MARRIED PEOPLE ARE GENERALLY BETTER OFF IN ALL MEASURES OF WELL-BEING THAN THOSE WHO LIVE TOGETHER.
o STATISTICS SHOW THAT COHABITATING COUPLES ABUSE EACH OTHER MORE OFTEN AND MORE SEVERELY THAN DATING COUPLES OR MARRIED COUPLES. - (Dr. Larson, Nat’l Instit. Of HealthCare Research) (According to the Journal of Marriage and the Family) - "Aggression is at least twice as common among cohabiters as it is among married partners."
o COHABITERS EXPERIENCED SIGNIFICANTLY MORE DIFFICULTY IN (SUBSEQUENT) MARRIAGES WITH (ISSUES OF) ADULTERY, ALCOHOL, DRUGS AND INDEPENDENCE THAN COUPLES WHO HAD NOT COHABITED. - (According to Researchers at UCLA)
o MARRIED PEOPLE ENJOY BETTER PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH THAN THOSE WHO COHABITATE. - (According to Dr. Robert Coombes, bio-behavioral scientist at UCLA) In fact, one of the most respected studies in the field of psychiatry said those in married relationships experienced a lower rate of severe depression than people in any other category. The numbers were as follows:
Annual Rate of Depression Per 100:
Married (never divorced) 1.5
Never Married 2.4
Divorced Once 4.1
Cohabitating 5.1
Divorced Twice 5.8
· FACT #3: Abstinence Leads to Sexual Satisfaction. Couples not involved sexually before marriage and faithful during marriage are more satisfied with their current sex life than those who were involved sexually before marriage. - (According to Dr. Larson, Nat’l Instit. Of HealthCare Research)
What does all this mean? Long lasting love is about commitment and commitment isn’t built on compromise. It’s built on things like trust and honesty and dependability. It says things like, "You can count on me." And - "I’ll always be there for you." And then backs up those words hundreds of times in hundreds of ways with actions that prove it.
Illustr. - The Billy Graham movie "A Vow to Cherish" illustrates the COMMITMENT of PURE LOVE in a powerful way. The lead character’s wife contracts Alzheimer’s at a very young age, devastating the family and threatening to destroy a long-standing marriage. The husband is reduced to a caregiver for a wife who can no longer physically or mentally fulfill him. She doesn’t even know his name. In the mean time, he strikes up a friendship with an attractive woman he meets while jogging. The climax of the movie takes place when the husband, on the brink of compromise and close to walking away from it all, renews his COMMITMENT to his wife. In an incredibly moving scene, he kneels by their bed, holds his wife’s hand, looks her in the eye and repeats his wedding vows. Watch that scene with me…
When successful couples are asked what kept them together for 40, 50 or more years of marriage, their answers are usually similar, "I decided a long time ago that I loved him/her, and once I decided that, nothing could change it." PURE LOVE IS ABOUT COMMITMENT.
II. PURE LOVE IS ABOUT SACRIFICE. "Love…does not boast, it is not proud, it is not self-seeking…" - I Cor. 13:5. Love cares more about the other person’s happiness than your own. Two individuals who willingly make mutual sacrifices for the good of the other can grow and keep a pure love that lasts a lifetime. If it’s all about him, girl, it ain’t love! If it’s all about her getting what she wants, my man, you’d better run for your life! PURE LOVE IS ABOUT SACRIFICE.
Illustr. - Kurt Warner dating his future wife Brenda.
"Love is not self-seeking…" Sacrificial love gives and keeps on giving.
III. PURE LOVE IS ABOUT…PURITY. "Love is patient…it does not delight in evil…" I Cor. 13:4&6. Prince Charming won’t ride into your life sidesaddle in the back seat of the car on Friday night! Britney Spears may have a great body and millions of dollars but showing your navel and shaking your groove thing won’t buy you love. If you’ve gotta’ get dirty to get it, it ain’t love! If you’ve got to take off your clothes to prove it, it ain’t love! True love waits. I could read you a thousand stories why. Here’s one: Illustr. - A Good Girls Story
Illustr. - Iris Blue always wanted to be a lady but she was a big girl and awkward. At 12 years of age she was 6’3" - bigger than her teachers! The world told her as a girl that if she didn’t have a certain kind of body she wasn’t a real woman. All she wanted was someone who would open the door for her and treat her like a lady. She just wanted to feel valuable, like she was special. She tried to bury her feelings inside but began to struggle because of her size and because she didn’t feel pretty.
She came home from church one day and asked her mother, "Why I am so big mother?" And her mom said, "God did it." Iris said, "I wanted to whup God! I thought, ’Why’d He do that?’" She became angry, disillusioned with God - and rebellious. At age 13 she ran away from home. By the following week she was working in a topless nightclub "doing everything she said she would never do." She started doing drugs and stealing. She was arrested several times. This young Baptist girl with parents who dearly loved her was eventually arrested for armed robbery and sent to prison.
She was not only locked up behind bars, she was locked up in a body and a life that she could not stand. She used to daydream, locked up in solitary confinement and in her dreams, she would dream that a doctor would operate on her and pull her apart and inside her great big body would be a little bitty pretty girl and men would fall at her feet. She dreamed of the day when she would be a lady. She wasted 7 years of her life daydreaming in prison.
Her parents were told to give up on her after psychological tests and personality evaluations conducted in prison determined that she was, "incorrigible and a degenerate" - words she later learned meant there was no hope. When Iris got out of prison, within hours she was back on drugs. When she got home to her room she found 7 years of Christmas presents, Easter baskets, Valentines Gifts, birthday presents. But even her mom and daddy’s love wasn’t enough to make her feel like a lady. She began working in bars again. In fact, it wasn’t long before she was running 3 bars and living a horrible life filled with drugs, sex and everything imaginable. No hope.
But momma didn’t give up. She began to pray. She invited Iris over for dinner one night and before Iris left she looked her in the eye and told her, "Iris, you need Jesus." Iris made fun of her mother and God. Called her a hypocrite. Her mom knew she was right. She went home, fell on her knees and said, "God, she’s right, I’m a hypocrite and a phony. Forgive me, cleanse me, fill me with your peace and your presence and whatever it takes, save my baby. I don’t want to go to heaven without her." She went back to church and told the whole church to pray for Iris.
Iris went back to the bars. It didn’t seem like the prayers were doing anything at first. But in two weeks, a young man heard a message that we’re to go out and look for the hurting and bring them into the Kingdom. And he picked Iris. He started witnessing to her. He would call her up and tell her how valuable she was saying, "If you had been the only person in the whole world, Jesus would have died for you. God loves you Iris." He’d call late at night and she’d be high and have to plug her ears and go in the bathroom just to hear because it was so loud in the bar. And he’d say, "I just called to say, ’Jesus loves you.’" And she’d hang up on him.
He witnessed to her several times and then one day he called her up and said, "Iris, would you meet me outside. I want to tell you goodbye." So he came and she went out and sat in his car. He said, "Iris, you think I’m not even a man because what you girls are trying to get me to do, I won’t go for. I know it would feel good for a few moments but I’m more concerned about your eternity than a moments pleasure for me." Then with tears running down his face, this man said the words that changed her life. He said, "Iris, Jesus can make you a lady." When he said the word, "Lady" something broke open inside her. All her life she’d wanted to be a lady.
They got out and knelt on the street corner as this man led her in the sinner’s prayer, explaining that it was like a preacher giving a young bride and groom their wedding vows. He said, "Jesus, do you want Iris?" He said, "Aahh, He said He wants you Iris, whatever it takes…" He said, "Iris, do you want Jesus?" And she said, "Yeah…I do." That night God changed her life. She closed three clubs the next day. Today she’s in the ministry with her husband. They travel around the world telling what Jesus has done for them. Her testimony: On March 31, she knelt down on a street corner an old tramp but stood up a lady; clean, pure, forgiven, innocent, blameless…She found Pure Love in an Impure World.
CONCLUSION: As I studied for this message, I felt like God wanted me to say to someone (or maybe several "someones") - "My grace is greater than all your sins. No matter what you’ve done, my grace is greater. I will heal, I will restore, I will forgive, I will purify. Just come to me. Trust in me." The truth is, we’ve all messed up at one time. None of us is perfect. Proverbs 20:9 - "Who can say, ’I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin?’" Iris Blue learned that Jesus could make a lady out of a tramp. His grace went beyond years of sin and shame. It only takes a moment…I John 1:9 - "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us of our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." His grace is greater. It runs deeper. It goes farther. It knows no boundaries.
Jesus will make a lifetime COMMITMENT to you. "Never will I leave you or forsake you." - Hebrews 13:5
Jesus made the ultimate SACRIFICE for you. "Greater love has no man than this that one lay down his life for His friends." - John 15:13
Jesus love for you is PURE. "God made the only sinless man who ever lived to be sin for us that we might be made completely clean in God’s sight." - II Cor. 5:21. (MY VERSION)
Psalm 51:10 - "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."
